


The Question

by siriuspiggyback



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Family Feels, Good Brother Ben Hargreeves, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sober Klaus Hargreeves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 05:37:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18423963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuspiggyback/pseuds/siriuspiggyback
Summary: For a few years, as a child - after realising that no one else could see the strange screaming people, but before anyone believed that they were ghosts - Klaus would often ask, is it real? Once the mausoleum became a regular part of Klaus’ training, he stopped asking. Then, he started self medicating, and he never needed to ask at all.After Vietnam, he began asking the question again.





	The Question

For a few years, as a child - after realising that no one else could see the strange screaming people, but before anyone believed that they were ghosts - Klaus would often ask,  _ is it real? _ He never asked Reginald after the first time, when his father had lectured him sternly for attention seeking. He usually asked Ben, who would always answer truthfully, or Diego, who would give him strange looks but stutter out a yes or no. Luther and Allison always told him to stop lying, and Five impatiently told him to grow up and stop playing silly games. Vanya tended to look vaguely alarmed, so he tried to avoid asking her. 

 

Eventually, after Reginald realised what Number Four was seeing, he instead asked,  _ are they alive?  _ His siblings were usually more inclined to give him an answer, now that Reginald didn’t disapprove of the question so much. At first, they seemed curious as to what their brother could see, but once Klaus had described the mangled corpse standing behind Diego, they stopped asking him about the ghosts. Klaus thought that was understandable. He didn’t want to know what the dead looked like, either. 

 

Once the mausoleum became a regular part of Klaus’ training, he stopped asking all together. He still sometimes struggled to tell the dead from the living, but he just preferred to pretend none of them existed at all. He didn’t like thinking about his power, or the ghosts haunting him, begging and screaming for his help.

 

Then, he started self medicating, and he never needed to ask at all.

 

Keeping his hold on reality became a little more challenging again, after Vietnam. Still, he was determined not to let his grip slip. The flashbacks left him shaking and gasping for air, terrified by the way the whole world around him faded and distorted until he didn’t know where he was.  Still, after each one passed, he would remind himself of what was real and what wasn’t. He would mentally chant, _ it’s 2019, I’m not there, it’s 2019…  _ He knew that Ben would be eager to help if he could, but Klaus refused to explain the way the real world would slide out from under him for minutes at a time. He still didn’t ask what was real.

 

One evening, Klaus sat barefoot on the kitchen table, reaching out behind the veil in search of his lost love. Ben watched him, silently supportive, hoping to see a flicker of the mysterious Dave. Klaus rolled his neck. He had been trying every day since the apocalypse had been averted, but despite his sobriety, he had yet to succeed. His powers had been growing, allowing him to materialise Ben for minutes at a time, so why wasn’t this working? The silence stretched out, Klaus watching the space in front of him with a tentative kind of patience. Then he startled, leaping down from the table.

 

“Dave!” he cried, joyful.

 

Ben frowned, eyes flickering over the space. 

 

Klaus froze, reached out into the air with searching hands. “No, wait! Dave? Dave!” He turned to Ben, eyes wide and tearful, and asked, “Where did he go?”

 

“I-” Ben hesitated, “I didn’t see anyone.”

 

Klaus squinted, perplexed. “What? What do you mean? He was right there,” he said, gesturing at the space between the table and the fridge. 

 

Ben stepped toward Klaus, expression unsure. “I didn’t see him,” he repeated.

 

“But,” Klaus choked, “I thought… just for a second…”

 

“Klaus,” Ben said, reaching out, only to feel his hand phase through his brother’s shoulder.

 

“Were you watching? Maybe you just missed him,” suggested Klaus, desperation leaking into his voice. 

 

“Maybe,” agreed Ben, although he sounded doubtful. “I think you should go get some sleep. Try again tomorrow, yeah?”

 

Klaus didn’t answer for a while, staring at the space in front of him like Dave might appear any second. He wrapped his arms around himself, and it made him look small. He said, “I’m not crazy.”

 

Ben swallowed. “I didn’t say you were.”

 

Klaus was silent for a moment more, before dragging himself to bed. 

  
  


The next time it happened was a couple of days later, when Klaus was making coffee. He startled so hard that he dropped his mug. It bounced along the floor, but miraculously stayed intact. “Dave?” he asked, hopeful.

 

Ben looked up from his book, twisting around, but only finding an empty room. “Klaus?”

 

“Ben, did you hear that? Please tell me you heard that,” Klaus begged.

 

“Klaus, I… I didn’t hear anything.”

 

Klaus shook his head. “But I heard him, I heard Dave! He said my name!”

 

Ben took a long breath that he didn’t need, and softly said, “Klaus, I didn’t hear anything.”

 

Klaus shuddered, his expression closing off. “Fuck,” he said, voice tight despite his grin, “I really am losing it, huh?”

 

“You’ve just experienced a bunch of trauma,” said Ben, “it’s normal to-”

 

“I’m hallucinating my dead boyfriend,” Klaus interrupted flatly, “don’t tell me that’s normal.”

 

Ben went quiet. Klaus sniffled, quickly wiping away the tears that spilled from his eyes, and went back to making his coffee.

  
  


After that, he began asking the question again, feeling like the confused five year old he once was. He asked,  _ is it real? _ in the night when he saw the silhouette of his love over his bed; when Dave’s voice echoed through the hall; when he saw a flash of army green at the edge of his vision. Ben always answered, assuring him that there was nothing there at all. 

  
  


The first time he asked the question around people other than Ben was at a family dinner. Five was telling a story about some woman asking him where his parents were that day, when Klaus’ cutlery clattered to the table. Five cut off, his siblings turning to look at Klaus.

 

“Klaus?” asked Diego, sounding apprehensive.

 

Klaus mouth opened and closed, eyes fixed at a spot over by the window. “Is it r-real?”

 

“What?” said Luther, but Klaus wasn’t listening to him.

 

_ Is it real? _

 

“No,” Ben said sadly, “no one’s there.”

 

Klaus took a shaking breath and closed his eyes. His siblings were frozen in place, looking between themselves in the hope that one of them might know what was happening.

 

Vanya asked, “Klaus, are you okay?”

 

Klaus laughed, a hysterical sound, palms pressed over his mouth to muffle the noise. He was rocking back and forth just slightly. His siblings tracked the movement with wide eyes. 

 

Diego, who sat next to Klaus, reached over slowly, like approaching a wild animal. He laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder. Klaus stilled, a low whine escaping his throat. Encouraged, Diego pulled him against his chest, ran a hand across his brother’s back.

 

“I can’t tell what’s real anymore,” admitted Klaus between hitching breaths.

 

Allison reached across the table, folding his  _ hello _ hand into hers. “Then we’ll help you,” she promised. 

  
  
  


_ Is it real? _

 

The question became a familiar phrase in the Hargreeves mansion. It gave Klaus  déjà vu sometimes, remembering all the times he had asked the same question as a child. Things were different now; no one brushed him off, or accused him of lying. Even Luther, who had always regarded Klaus with some suspicion, tried to comfort Klaus on days when his brain was playing tricks on him. Another change was that Ben was the only one who could tell him what was real, the rest of his siblings unable to see anything regardless of whether it was a ghost or a figment of Klaus’ imagination. Luckily for Klaus, Ben was rarely far from his side. 

 

The hallucinations still left Klaus unsteady sometimes. He was familiar with people looking at him like he was insane, but he had never really felt crazy before. Whenever he felt frustrated with his own head, he would go to his siblings for a distaction. Vanya would play him songs, drowning out the cries of the dead and the voice of his lover. Diego would take him for waffles, tell stories of his time in the academy, and of Patch, the detective who had saved Klaus’ life. Allison would paint his nails, and the pair would gossip like teenagers, his sister spilling the secrets of Hollywood which hadn’t made it to the magazines. Even Luther and Five, neither adept at comforting people, tried their best to pull their brothers attention away from whatever they couldn’t see. 

  
  


A few months later, Klaus was sleepily chewing on his breakfast, surrounded by his family. Mom was cooking, Diego helping her serve out the food. Five was grumbling into a mug of coffee, with Vanya’s head on his shoulder. Her eyes had fluttered closed, unwilling to be awake so early but not wanting to miss breakfast with her siblings. Luther and Allison, both morning people, were chatting animatedly with a corporeal Ben, who didn’t ever sleep. The radio was playing softly, something bright and cheery that Reginald would have despised. The scene was quickly becoming a normal part of their routine, but it still made Klaus smile to himself. 

 

Klaus looked up with bleary eyes when Dave’s form appeared by the stove. Klaus elbowed Ben, limbs still clumsy with sleep. “Is it real?” he asked, stifling a yawn.

 

Ben was motionless next to him, blinking. “Real,” he choked out.

 

Klaus was moving before he processed the words, standing on shaky legs. His siblings were watching, caught between confusion and hope, but Klaus couldn’t look away from his love. Klaus’ eyes raked over Dave’s form, from his shining blue eyes and warm smile, down to the bullet wound in his chest. He was beautiful. Klaus thought that he had forgotten just how beautiful. He wavered on his feet, throat bobbing. When he spoke, his voice wobbled and broke. “Dave?”

 

Dave’s eyes crinkled with a grin, even as a ghostly tear ran down his cheek. “Hello, Klaus.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> i cant seem to stop writing about Klaus suffering¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> comments give me instant serotonin


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